February 2009 Archives

I looked up March Madness on Wikipedia to research the roots of the saying "March Madness". I was expecting to find anecdotes on Julius Caesar & the "Ides of March" or that the name March is derived from Mars, the Roman God of War & was the traditional start of military campaigns, or even references to the coming of Spring & folks getting all crazy, you know LOVE crazy, after long cold lonely winter. But, no. It's all about Basketball. College Basketball. Lots of College Basketball. So in the spirit of full disclosure there is nothing in the AS220 galleries this March that directly refers to any college basketball team or tournament. What I can promise is signs of Spring in Amy Ryan's lush landscapes, and the growing hope in Jenine Bressner's glass plant chandeliers. Just enough madness licks the fringes of Christopher Thomas's mixed media sculptures that compel delicate navigation round them. Deb Hickey's mixed media work tours the gritty side of the West End exposing traces of psychogeographical madness round those parts. S.W. Dinge presents "...a moon lit graveyard, a balloon, some crayons, a pile of matches, an atomic bomb and a box of feathers. that's the sunday bullet." A March Madness of a different order all together....

Our new exhibitions open Sunday March 1 from 4-7pm and runs through March 28, featuring: in the AS220 Main Gallery: "Ready or Not Here I Come" New Collage Paintings by Deb Hickey and New Paintings by Amy Ryan.

The Open Window features New Glass Chandeliers by Jenine Bressner.

The AS220 Project Space presents New Sculpture work by Christopher Thomas & "The Sunday Bullet" an installation by S.W. Dinge.

The Youth Gallery presents work from the Beacon Charter High School for the Art, where the school motto "To be an artist is to believe in life", is their guiding spirit.

For People Not On Phones: an art installation by Purest Spiritual Pigs Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - February 25, 2009 At six undisclosed public locations

This project was fabricated as part of an artist residency at: AS220 115 Empire Street Providence, 02903

For People Not On Phones is the newest conceptual creation by Purest Spiritual Pigs, a solo and collaborative project lead by Helena Thompson. For this project the artists have created sound installations and placed them discreetly in public spaces, both inside and outdoors. The volume of these auditory compositions is extremely low, discernable only to passers-by who are fully present in their environment. Sounds created in and from the future locations of the six installations were used in creating the finished works that are heard in those very same places.

Thompson was a resident artist at AS220 from a few months after its inception in 1985, until 1990, when she relocated to San Francisco. For the month of February, Thompson returns again as an Artist in Residence by way of AS220's collective invitation. This Purest Spiritual Pigs project brings AS220 Labs in as one of Thompson's collaborator. AS220 Labs contributed the planning and fabrication of the sound devices used in the install, utilizing open-source Arduino chips and small laser cut handcrafted Plexi boxes. Susan Clausen, Bert Crenca, and Blue Wade also joined Purest Spiritual Pigs for this exciting collaboration, helping create the final recordings.

The artists hope that a number of people will happen upon the installations in the normal course of their week and have the opportunity to interact with the pieces, but is not formally releasing the whereabouts of the six soundscapes.

This is the first of a series Thompson plans to bring to public locations in multiple cities. AS220 is pleased to have been the springboard for this ambitious series.

For more information about the exhibit or AS220 please contact:

AS220 Communications Director 401.831.9327 x116 Cheryl Kaminsky cheryl@as220.org

or

Helena Thompson purestspiritualpigs@gmail.com www.purestspiritualpigs.com

calling all artists: painters, photographers, printers, sculptors, poets, playwrights, calligraphers, metalsmiths, ceramasists, who work in materials and mediums such as paper, metal, stiffened fabric, plastic, clay, glass, balsa wood, leather, embroidery canvas, acetate, heavy watercolor paper, textile arts, charcoal, photo gravure, acrylic, oil, collage, scratch board, mixed media, assemblage, digital art, letter forms, bead work, rubber stamps, carved soft block stamps, pen and ink, colored pencil, airbrush, pastels, sustainables, fuzzy yarn and many other materials to join together for an artist trading card night. Bring twenty pieces of original or limited edition work measuring 2.5" x 3.5" with your signature to Design Within Reach, 210 Westminster Street, Providence RI on February 18th from 6-8pm. No applications, slides, registration forms, fees, blood work, evaluations, statements, bios, fingerprints, censorship, or prostitution necessary. Just come and look and trade.

TradingCardPoster.pdf